Fragments
by Man Of Reason
Summary: Sometimes after tragedy, only fragments of who we were remain. Spoilers implied for entire season one.


Disclaimer: It all belongs to someone else, the NBC people.

A/N: Not sure if this is a one shot or not, we'll see if I'm still interested in a few days. Oh and I've never done something so cheesy before but somehow it felt right to do it here. By the way I have no one to look over this so there may be a mistake or two.

**Fragments**

It was the rain that woke him, despite his best efforts to ignore the steady pull of consciousness, as it drummed against his window in a melody dictated by the wind. For a few moments his mind was blissfully unaware of the significance of the day before him. Buried in his blankets, his eyes slowly opened and he glared at the offending window. His mind only dimly registering the dull, overcast, light that filtered in through the cascading rivulets of water that ran down his window in haphazard streams. Only dark silhouettes of the trees that lined the street could be seen as the wind tossed them this way and that.

'What a wonderful morning,' he thought as he rolled over to get a good look at the alarm clock, hoping to confirm his suspicion that it was far to early to be awake. Thankfully the blaring bright red numbers agreed with him, the clock reading six-twenty-three a.m., normally a good hour before he should be awake. Distantly it came to him that he had nothing to do today and that he could sleep for as long as he wanted, perhaps it was the weekend? But truthfully he didn't care, as long as he got to stay under the blankets and protected from the weather.

Yet as he tired to force his mind back into oblivion and to surrender once more to the warmth of his bed, he began to realize that something was not right. For some odd reason his mind was becoming more and more alert, as if in direct protest to his wishes, it began to mock him with its clarity. First he tired to ignore it, and then as that proved fruitless he tried to find the answer his mind seemed to be searching for. Over and over again he ran through the possibilities, the day of the week, the time, the weather, the possibility that there was something pressing that he should be doing and time and again he found nothing. Just as panic was about to rise, as much as it could to someone half asleep anyway, from the recesses of his mind the blaring red numbers on the alarm clocked surfaced again and this time he saw something more. There beside the time, innocently stood the date.

Instantly his eyes snapped open, the fog that had seemed to seep into his very thoughts vanished; alertness came to him at an almost painful speed. He brought one hand up to move his hair out of he eyes as he sat bolt upright before desperately turning and looking at the clock again, hoping it would say something different, praying that in his semiconscious state he had simply misread. Unfortunately for him, he had not. "Oh god, two years," he muttered as he stared as if entranced at the alarm clock, the alarm clock that was showing the one date in the calendar that meant anything at all to him, "two lost years."

Two years ago this day he had woken on the outskirts of New York City, nearly naked, exhausted and hungry. It was two years ago this day that his memories began. Before that there was almost nothing, just random images, a flash here, a frozen picture there, sometime shattered into pieces, sometime whole. Never were they congruent, never were there words; never were there feelings, merely …fragments. Tattered remnants of a life he had completely forgotten, hell they didn't even tell him his name.

Unable to even contemplate sleep anymore he threw back his covers and stood, his bed all but erased from his thinking. He remembered being bewildered at his inability to recall anything, contemplated going to the police to see if anyone had filed a missing persons report, but then his first fragment had come to him and instead he ran, wanting to put as much distance between himself and New York City as possible.

It hung on his wall now, as they all did, captured as perfectly as he could manage. With canvas and paint the image, the freeze frame that had burned through his mind, was now on display to anyone that would walk into this room. It was a painting of a beautiful woman, pain etched on her features as blood worked its way out of her mouth, cradled in what he thought were his arms. The two bullet holes were clearly visible on her torso, blood stains on her cloths. Surprise and shock somehow flowed from her eyes. It was a brief second of an image, no more, no less, with nothing on either side.

What had happened? Had he shot her? Did she die, did he kill her? Was he wanted for murder, was he an accessory to the crime? In two years he was still no closer to the answer and he still didn't dare go to the police to see if anyone was looking for him, the risk still outweighed any possible gain. The man that had found him, the man that had offered to aid him, had enlightened him to other reasons why it might be dangerous to go to the authorities. His hand reached out of its own accord, as if to brush her face. Who was she? What had she been to him? Did she have something to do with him losing his memory? He had done some research which suggested that the most probable cause of memory loss was massive head trauma, yet he had had not a scratch on him.

At first his efforts to ensure that he would not forget what precious little he could remember had been sloppy, the image unclear and nothing at all like what he saw in his head. But over the last two years his ability with a brush had grown and each of the paintings that lined his walls had been done at least a dozen times, until the smallest detail was done as perfectly as he could manage.

His eyes found the second painting. At first he had been unable to paint depth and perception properly, unable to do the shadowing and shading to match the vision in his head. The grey slabs of metal had been indistinguishable among the grey paint, the man in the black clothes and hat at the end of what appeared to be a hallway had seemed little more than an afterthought. Now, now despite been the smallest feature in the painting he was its focal point. Somehow just standing there in the middle of what were clearly locker doors that seemed to be flying out of the painting with deadly intent, he seemed dangerous. Despite been unable to make out any of his features, he seemed sinister, deadly, just as he saw it with his minds eye.

In another he was at a wedding standing behind the groom facing the bride. Strangely, despite the fact that he was facing her, he couldn't see her face, it was as if it was not what he had been concentrating on. On the other hand the back of the groom was as detailed as he could manage, every crease in his jacket shown clearly, the way the light hit him, the cut of his hair, all perfectly detailed. From this position he could be none other than the best man, yet he knew nothing about this man.

There were others of course, an image of an old woman with grey in her hair, an empty roof of a building in what he was sure was New York City, an old man in a wheelchair and more. Yet his most valued painting hung near his door, positioned so all he had to do was move his head the barest of a fraction to view it each morning on his way out the door. It was his most valued one for one simple reason; it was of his longest memory.

The painting was all blue and black, as if natural sunlight could not reach the area, which was understandable considering the background showed that he was on a train. Strangely in his memory the people in the background never moved, nor did the lighting change which was unusual considering they were probably in a tunnel. This was reflected in the painting as everything in the background was blurry, unimportant. The man that dominate the painting and his memory was stranger still.

A small man of Asian heritage, dressed all in black with his hair pulled back in a ponytail, a sword of all things slung over his shoulder. Yet he was deadly serious, in the painting his mouth was open indicating he was talking. In his memory his mouth moved, he could hear no sound, he could just see the lips forming the words, no fewer than six he had decided over a year ago. How could six words be so important that it would be the only string of conversation that he could remember? How did they all connect?

Having had enough of torturing himself for another day he turned away from the paintings, determined that he wouldn't spend this particular anniversary lost in his own dark musings. Yet as he caught sight of his bathroom the image of the man on the train formed in his head, he saw his lips move once more and …and like mist fading before the sun another image, a new image, a new fragment, quickly followed. Without hesitation he forgot about his shower, instead turning towards his sheets of blank canvas and paints.

Two hours later the light streaming through the window was a bit brighter, the rain had slowed to just showers and the wind had been slowly dieing for the past hour. The man that called himself Jack didn't notice though. He stood, breathing heavily, staring at the new creation before him. It was imperfect, he was certain he would try again at least twice before the day was out, but it was good enough for the moment.

Again he did not recognize the person it contained but for the first time he did remember how he felt when it had happened, when he looked at the young girls face shame stirred within him. She was in a car, her face was framed by long straight blond hair which fell to her shoulders, her eyes were angry; her expression screamed one thing, betrayal. His eyes flicked between the new painting and the one of the man with the sword, somehow, someway they went together, and a direct connection existed. Why did he feel the need to protect her and why, when he looked at her young angelic face did a word her had never heard before whisper to him. It was a name, or place, or something called 'Odessa'.

* * *

Mohinder Suresh sat at his desk, as he did every Friday afternoon, staring gravely up at the clock. As normal he gave up trying to work at four o'clock. It became impossible when his mind began to wonder to do anything productive. If he tried to work it would be rubbish anyway, needing to be redone later. His eyes flickered down to the black phone that sat upon his desk hoping that this would be the week that it wouldn't ring, hoping that he wouldn't have to answer it once again.

As the time came near it became impossible to look away, he found he was holding his breath. He watched as the clocked made its way ever so slowly towards its goal, watched as the second hand went past the numeral six and started its assent toward the twelve. Nervousness wormed its way into his stomach and grew literally at each passing second. As the second hand past twelve and the clock struck five hesitant thoughts made there way into his head, 'Perhaps this is the week that she doesn't call, perhaps she has finally moved on, moved past those desperate few months and there tragic end. Perhaps-.'

The thought died as the phone rang and he nearly jumped out of seat. The breath that he had been holding found its way out of his lungs and with shaking hands he reached out and picked up the phone, at the same time praying he wouldn't hear her voice on the other end, "Dr. Suresh."

His hopes were dashed however the moment Claire Bennets quite voice came from the other end and yet another awkward conversation began with the girl from Texas, "Hello Dr. Suresh, its Claire," though this had become routine, for some reason formalities were always used.

"Hello, Claire. It's good to hear your voice." He only half lied, if she hadn't called he would have started to worry that something was wrong and would have probably ended up calling Noah.

"And yours too," she said with what he thought was a forced brightness and was proved right the moment her hesitant voice cut right to the heart of the matter, something she only did when she was in a particularly bad mood, "has there been any word of him, has Molly found anything?"

There was no need to say which him she was referring to, considering they had this conversation every week. He answered as he had every single time before, "No Claire, I'm sorry, there's been no change. Molly is still unable to locate him." He paused and let her take in the information that he was sure she was expecting, half expecting her to mutter a little 'oh' like she almost always did. This time however there was only silence. "You know I would call you the minute anything changed."

For a moment there was no reply to the line that always seemed to escape his lips at this part of there conversations and he could imagine her smiling sadly. "I know that, it's just…," she stopped speaking and he thought he heard her sniffle, "it's just so hard to sit here and do nothing."

"I understand Claire," he said, his words full of hollow comfort.

"I know you do," she said before effectively ending there conversation, "until next week then Dr. Suresh."

"Until next week," he agreed before the line went dead. It was with a heavy heart that he put his own phone down; half truths ate at him greatly. Although there had been no change, Molly had never been able to say where he was, she was not silent on the matter however and that was something Claire did not know, at the behest of Noah. Truth to tell Mohinder wasn't about to go telling Claire what Molly always said that she 'can't find Peter Petrelli until Peter Petrelli finds himself'. What that meant no one knew, but what would Claire do with that information? Again no one was sure and no one wanted to find out.

A/N: Okay so how can Peter lose his memory? I think it may be possible considering it could be a very long fall to earth and even though he would heal, his brain might protest. And his powers? If I remember correctly they are linked to his emotions when he thinks about certain people, so no memory, no emotions, no powers. Anyway if you liked R&R.


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